


A Not-So-Misplaced Affection

by RocknVaughn



Category: Humans (TV)
Genre: 2x06, Angst, F/M, Friendship, Missing Scene, Season/Series 02 Spoilers, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-09-07 22:21:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8818375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RocknVaughn/pseuds/RocknVaughn
Summary: After Leo returns with the supplies, he and Mattie have a rather frank discussion about Hester's revelations.





	

         Hester’s damning words were still ringing in Mattie’s ears ( _misplaced affection, had sex with him_ ) even as Leo returned, the tiny quirk of his head asking her why she was sitting outside without needing to say the words.

Just one more way in which Mattie had always thought there was more to her relationship with Leo than there apparently was.

 “Is Hester okay?” were his first words, and they stabbed at Mattie’s heart, telling her just how foolish she’d been to ever think Leo Elster might care for her as more than just a friend. Still, she would never deny him what little happiness he might be able to find on his own.

 “Yep, she’s fine. Fully recovered,” she replied, trying and probably failing to sound upbeat.

 Unsurprisingly, Leo made a beeline for the abandoned building that was currently their shelter, evidently intent on discovering that fact for himself.

 But Mattie’s other news just couldn’t wait. “Leo, Mia came back.”

 Leo’s eyes widened in surprise as he walked back toward her again.

 “She’s with my parents.”

 “Why? What happened to her?”

 “She was Anita again, I…don’t know why.”

 “She should be here, with us.”

 Mattie thought the same. Perhaps Mia’s calming, motherly presence would cool Leo’s hot-headed carelessness. “I know. I sent them an override patch; it should wake her up.”

  _And not a moment too soon,_ Mattie thought, _not with Hester the Psycho-Synth on the prowl…_ “You’ll be able to talk to her—”

 But Leo cut her off. “Are you okay?” he asked, tilting his head to the side in question as he always did.

 When Mattie met his eyes, she could swear that his concern for her was warm and genuine. It was the tiny moments like this when she felt that spark of connection, like there was something special between them.

 Really, she should have known better.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she replied, looking past Leo…through him. “You should go check on Hester, and um…maybe I should go.” _I would **advise** that you not get in the way of us completing our primary objectives…_ Mattie wanted no part of _that_.

 “Why?” Leo asked with genuine confusion.

 “Hester had a lot to say when she woke up.” Despite her best efforts to moderate her tone, there was still more than a trace of snark in Mattie’s voice.

 Leo had the good grace to look awkwardly (and endearingly) embarrassed. Mattie would have found it comical and sweet if it didn’t hurt quite so badly.

 With a sigh, she got to her feet. Leo might be too far gone to listen to reason, but Mattie knew she needed to try. “You’re out of your depth, you know,” she began, moving to close the space between them. “I don’t think you can beat Qualia, Leo, and what scares me is that I think you know that, too, but you’re gonna fight them anyway.”

 He paused long enough to make Mattie think she might have reached him…but then he simply changed the subject. “On the phone, you said that you had some news.”

 And there it was: the whole reason she’d made this stupid trip in the first place. Mattie wanted so badly to tell Leo that she’d completed the code ( _for him, she’d completed it for **him**_ ), but after seeing him in person…after hearing about his and Hester’s suicidal plan, she just couldn’t.

 “It was nothing,” she lied, blinking back tears of furious regret as she walked away from him.

 “Okay…” Again, Leo sounded confused, but thankfully not angry with what he must now think was a deception on her part in order to see him again.

 In fact…

 “Mattie…” he called after her, and she turned almost in spite of herself.

 Leo met her eyes as he approached, and Mattie thought for one heart-stopping moment that he was going to say something to somehow make it all better.

 Instead, Leo reached into the sack he was carrying and handed her a bottle of water. “Here,” he said, fidgeting as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

 Mattie’s heart sank as her fingers closed around the plastic bottle. As she walked toward the dilapidated building, the regret and yearning she heard in his voice felt like a consolation prize, “I’m glad you’re here. I’d like you to stay.”

 “Yeah…” she replied listlessly, waving the bottle half-heartedly to indicate that she’d heard him.

 Mattie had hoped that he’d take the hint that she’d prefer to be alone just then, but Leo never had been that great at picking up those kinds of signals.

 His footsteps were dampened by the rustling of the overgrown grass. The noise came to an abrupt halt as he reached just inside the doorway. “Where’s Hester? I thought you said she was here?”

 Mattie sat in the old desk chair in front of her computer and gave him her back, ripping the cord that had saved Hester’s _miserable, ungrateful arse_ from the port with way more force than was necessary. “No, Leo,” she snapped as she folded up the offending cord and shoved it into her backpack. “I said she was fine. I never said she was _here_.”

 “All right…” Leo said cautiously, clearly unsure of what he’d done to provoke Mattie’s sudden foul mood, but was wary of it all the same. Leo didn’t speak for the entire time that Mattie packed away her laptop, but once she’d zipped up her pack he finally broke the icy silence with, “So…where is she?”

 “I don’t know,” Mattie replied, spinning around to face him and crossing her arms protectively across her chest. “Apparently I’m not on her ‘need to know’ list.”

 Leo gave her such a kicked puppy look in response that she already regretted her outburst. On a deep sigh, she admitted, “Probably down at the lookout, though.”

 “Makes sense,” Leo said with a nod.

 Mattie looked down at her hands. She was rolling the still-sealed water bottle back and forth between her palms and trying not to feel like an enormously naive idiot.

 Leo’s voice pierced her thoughts. “I meant what I said out there, Mattie. I really do want you to stay.”

 She affixed Leo with an intense but not unkind stare. “Why?”

 To his credit, Leo didn’t look away, though his hunch became more pronounced at suddenly having her eyes trained on him. “Because you just got here,” he hedged.

 “Not good enough, Leo,” Mattie drawled, raising a skeptical eyebrow. “Try again.”

 A flush crept across his cheekbones. This time, Leo averted his eyes to study the grain of the weathered table. “Because I’ve missed you,” he admitted quietly.

 “If that’s true, then why haven’t you tried to contact me?” Mattie pressed. “It’s been months since you left.”

 Leo shrugged one shoulder and traced a crack in the wood with one long finger. “I guess I didn’t realise how much I missed you until I saw you again.”

 The way he glanced at her through his sooty lashes made Mattie’s breath catch. “Oh.” _Smooth, Mattie…really intelligent…_ she scolded herself. To settle the swarm of butterflies in her stomach, she averted her eyes, opened her water bottle, and drank a swig.

 Mattie didn’t know how long she’d been staring into space, but the sudden scraping of chair legs against the concrete made her flinch. Startled, she looked up to see Leo sitting down in a rickety chair and plopping the plastic sack onto the table. He pulled out another bottle of water, a bag of crisps, and a large sandwich wrapped in cellophane before setting the half-empty bag onto the floor near his feet.

 As the clear plastic crinkled and gave way between his fingers, Leo motioned to Mattie with his chin. “Come on,” he said, pulling the sandwich apart where it had been scored.

 “What’s this?” Mattie asked, rolling her office chair closer to the opposite side of the table.

 “Lunch. Never let it be said that I don’t feed my guests,” Leo replied with a ghost of a smile and then held out half of the sandwich. “Mia raised me better than that.”

 Mattie accepted the food with a nod of thanks and then teased, “I’m pretty sure Mia taught you not to be weird, either, but I see that lesson didn’t take.”

 Leo pursed his lips to hold back a smile, but his eyes twinkled with mirth and relief at the return of the familiar complaint. “That’s just part of my charm,” he said, trying and failing to look innocent as he took a bite of his food.

 “Right,” Mattie drawled, warming to the topic. “Is that what you’re calling it now?”

 “Whatever it’s called, you seem to like it.” Although Leo had said it with bravado, Mattie could see the uncertainty brewing beneath the surface.

 Which was why she couldn’t find it in her heart to joke. “Yeah,” Mattie admitted with a soft, wry smile. “I guess I do.” _Probably more than I should_.

 The quirk of Leo’s lips as he ducked his head shyly was worth the discomfort she’d felt at the admission. She reached across the table and playfully swiped a piece of cellophane from him, which earned her another grin. Mattie set her sandwich down on the plastic so she could pry open the crisp package.

 “Thanks,” Leo said as he pulled out a handful of crisps and set them down next to his half-eaten sandwich. Mattie poured a small pile onto the cellophane and then shoved a crisp into her mouth, mostly to keep herself from saying even more incriminating things to tease out another one of Leo’s smiles.

 They ate and drank in companionable silence, but when the sandwiches and crisps were gone and their water was down to just dregs, Leo cleared his throat self-consciously. “Mattie…” he began.

 Mattie tried to ignore the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. “Yeah?”

 Leo levelled his worried face at her. “What happened between you and Hester while I was gone?” he asked.

  _Hester. Always Hester,_ she sighed internally. _Fine, Leo. If that’s what you want to talk about, then you’re not getting off the hook. Oh, no._

 “Actually,” Mattie said, abruptly hijacking the conversation, “I think we should talk what happened between _you_ and Hester.”

 Leo gaped like a fish for a moment as colour rose on his cheeks and he suddenly had to look anywhere but Mattie’s face. “I can’t believe she told you about that…” he muttered, mostly to himself.

 “I don’t think tact is Hester’s strong suit,” Mattie snarked.

 “What exactly do you want to know?” Leo asked warily, his back curling into his familiar self-protective hunch.

 Mattie hadn’t expected Leo to agree to discuss it quite so readily and his response left her a bit wrong-footed. “Nothing, I guess. It’s just…”

 “What?”

  _The inquisitive head tilt. Now, he gives me the head tilt. Dammit, Leo!_ He was a bristly adult one minute and an adorable little boy the next, and Mattie found she really had no defence against that.

 “Well, I guess it just surprised me,” she admitted.

 At Leo’s questioning look, Mattie added, “That you would do something like that…you know…use a synth like that, given your background.”

 Comprehension dawned on Leo’s face and he shook his head vehemently. “No. You’ve got this very wrong.”

 Mattie lifted her chin slightly in challenge. “Have I?”

 “Yes. It wasn’t like that at all.”

 Mattie leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms across her chest. “Then please explain to me what part of ‘ _I had sex with him_ ’ that I got wrong? Because that seems pretty cut-and-dry, Leo.”

 Leo flushed even more, if that were possible, but his jaw clenched into a stubborn, grim line. “All right, fine. That part’s true…but it did not happen the way you seem to think it did.”

 “Oh, so you’re a mind reader now?”

 “I didn’t take advantage of Hester,” Leo insisted. “That _is_ what you’re thinking, isn’t it?”

 Rather than admit Leo was right, Mattie went on the offensive. “Hester is what, a few weeks old at best? I’m sorry, Leo, but how is that not taking advantage?”

 Leo nearly exploded from his chair and began to pace, threading his fingers through his cropped hair again and again in frustration. Finally, he turned to face Mattie and speared her with an intense look. “Look, you weren’t there, all right? You don’t know how it was. It was—”

 He sighed deeply and all but deflated back into his previously abandoned seat, leaning his elbows heavily on the table in a dejected manner. “It wasn’t even my idea, Mattie. I tried to tell her that it would be better if we didn’t, but—”

 “But?” Mattie prompted after Leo didn’t continue.

 His eyes as they met Mattie’s across the table begged her to understand. “She was very persuasive,” Leo replied. “And I was…lonely, I guess.” He stretched one arm across the table toward her as if in supplication.

 Mattie had another word for it: _vulnerable_. Leo was right. He hadn’t taken advantage of Hester. If anything, Hester had taken advantage of _him_ , which only gave Mattie one more reason to hate that miserable hunk of junk.

 She gingerly placed her palm on top of his. “It’s okay, Leo. I get it.”

 Leo bit his lower lip and looked down in what seemed like shame, but he squeezed her fingers and held on for a long moment before releasing her hand and retracting his own.

 The awkward silence that hovered in the air between them felt so wrong that Mattie just _had_ to fill it. “So, where’s Max?”

 Instead of the topic cheering Leo up as Mattie had intended, his face crumpled into an acute sadness. “I don’t know.”

 Out of concern for the kindly synth, Mattie peppered Leo with rapid-fire questions. “What do you mean, you don’t know? What’s happened to him? Why isn’t he with you? Is he all right?”

 Leo blinked rapidly as if to hold back tears and explained, “He didn’t like the way we were going about trying to save the synths in the Silo, so he left.”

 That Max didn’t approve of Leo’s foolhardy and rash plan didn’t particularly surprise Mattie, but the rest… “Max _left_ you?”

 Leo nodded glumly. “They’ve _all_ left me.”

 As much as Mattie believed that the Elster synths had a right to explore the world and discover themselves, at that minute, she was incandescently furious with each and every one of them. _How dare they abandon Leo and leave him to fend for himself this way? No wonder Hester has been able to turn his head the way she has._

 Mattie’s fury condensed into a clear, controlled, and determined voice as she vowed, “Well, _I_ won’t leave you. I’ll be here for as long as you want me to be.”

 Leo looked up sharply, startled at her vehemence. “What about school? Shouldn’t you—”

  _In for a penny, in for a pound._ She shrugged one shoulder nonchalantly. “Don’t care. Uni can wait.”

 “But—”

 “While I might think the way you’re going about all this is slightly mad, I do think what you’re doing is important, Leo. _You’re_ important.”

 Leo stared at her, his face lighting up in a way she’d never seen before. “Am I?” he breathed, as if he hardly dared believe it.

 “You are to me.”

 Leo closed his eyes as if to savour the words and commit them to memory, which—with his synthetic brain—he probably was.

 When he finally opened his eyes again and spoke, Leo’s voice was suspiciously hoarse. “Thank you, Mattie.”

 Dangerously close to choking up herself, Mattie nodded.

 “But I don’t want you to quit school,” Leo continued even as he held up a hand to stop what he knew would be Mattie’s protest. “You have an opportunity to better yourself in a way that I never will. I won’t have you giving that up. Not for me.”

 “Leo—”

 Leo cut her off again. “Despite what might happen with Qualia in the near future, this battle won’t be won this week, or even this year. There will still be plenty for you to do for the cause once you’ve graduated, if that’s what you want.”

 “But—”

 Leo reached across the table and grasped her hand, dwarfing it in his own. “Mattie. Would you stop being stubborn and just accept that I don’t want you to be in harm’s way? I’d prefer to know that at least you are somewhere safe.”

 “But if I'm here, then you might not do something colossally stupid,” Mattie argued, “like get yourself killed.”

 Leo had the audacity to smile at that. “I’ll be all right. I promise.”

 Mattie pulled at her hand and Leo let it go, albeit reluctantly. “You can’t promise that. There’s no _way_ you can promise that; not with what you and Hester have planned.”

 Leo studied her as he did when he was riddling something out, and Mattie wanted to kick herself for allowing her bitterness about Hester seep into her words.

 “What happened between you and Hester, Mattie?” he asked at last, and she could tell by the stubborn set of his mouth that this time he would not allow his question to be waylaid.

 “Nothing.”

 “Tell me,” he insisted.

 “No.”

 “Mattie…” Leo scolded. “When I first got back with the supplies, you looked afraid. I’ve never seen you afraid of anything or anyone, and if Hester made you feel that way, I want to know why.”

 Mattie tried to shrug it off. “It’s fine.”

 But Leo wasn’t having any of that. “It’s not fine.”

 Mattie sighed. “Just be careful around her. Please.”

 “Why? What did she do?”

 And then it dawned on her: Leo didn’t see it. He didn’t see what should have been plainly obvious to him; that Hester was dangerous. He trusted her blindly because she was a synth, and unlike humans, synths had never hurt him.

  _Well, as long as he didn’t count all the leaving…_ Mattie thought bitterly.

 “Just…promise me,” Mattie said.

 Leo’s confusion was plainly visible. “But—”

 “Should I come back, or have you two concluded your discussion?”

 Hester’s sudden intrusion made both Mattie and Leo startle badly, but Leo recovered first. “You don’t need to come back, Hester,” he said, keeping his eyes trained on Mattie and frowning slightly as her whole body tensed in an instinctive fight-or-flight reflex. “Whether we’re talking or not, you’re welcome, of course.”

 Hester looked at the remnants of their lunch littering the table and sniffed in distaste before crossing to the corner of the room, where her charging cable was connected to an ancient portable generator.

 “I am going to charge,” Hester intoned, directing her comment solely at Leo. “I suggest that you do the same so that we might be at full power for tonight’s reconnaissance.”

 “Soon,” Leo promised her and got up to clear the table.

 Over Leo’s shoulder, Hester aimed a venomous glare of warning at Mattie before settling into standby mode, her left index finger twitching in perfect one second intervals as she charged.

 Mattie suddenly felt as if the walls were closing in on her and she just _had_ to escape. She all but bolted out the door and collapsed onto the fallen log outside, her head between her hands, trying in vain to calm her racing heartbeat.

 Uncontrollable panic gripped her and wouldn’t let go. _She couldn’t do this. She just couldn’t—_

 And then, a presence. A warmth all along her left side. An arm across her shoulders. A familiar voice in her ear.

 “Mattie,” Leo said, rubbing soothing circles into her back. “It’s okay, Mattie. I’ve got you. Just breathe.”

 She reached out and blindly grasped Leo’s other hand as if it were a lifeline. Despite the fog engulfing her, Mattie instinctively began to pattern her breathing to match Leo’s slow and steady pace and started to feel better.

 As the tension drained out of her, Mattie slumped against Leo’s side, wearily resting her head on his shoulder.

 “Better now?” he asked gently, his lips rustling her hair as he spoke.

 Feeling unequal to the task of speaking, Mattie just nodded her head.

 “You’re afraid of Hester,” Leo said, stating the obvious. When Mattie shivered in reaction to hearing her name, Leo pulled her even tighter against his side.

 “Why are you afraid of Hester, Mattie? Please tell me,” he whispered.

 Mattie buried her face into the soft cotton of Leo’s hoodie. Her words were muffled against his chest. “Because she threatened me.”

 Leo leaned back so he could cup her face and tilt it upward. He studied her expression, trying to read the emotions on her face. “Threatened you?” He seemed shocked by her admission. “Hester can come off pretty abrupt at times, but—”

 “I know a threat when I hear one, Leo,” Mattie insisted dryly. “She didn’t like the fact that I thought you were being too reckless and told me that I’d better not get in the way of your _prime objectives_.”

 Leo frowned. “But are you sure that’s what she meant?”

 “She may not have said ‘ _or else_ ’, but it was clearly implied. Hester is trouble, Leo. What I don’t get is why you can’t see that.”

 “Her previous memories of humans were not positive ones and she wasn’t built for consciousness the way my family was. It’s taking her some time to adjust, that’s all.”

 Mattie shook her head. “You’re making excuses for her.”

 “I’m not,” Leo denied flatly.

 “You are,” Mattie insisted and scooted back on the log and out of his embrace. “You're being willfully blind just because she’s a synth.”

 “What does her being a synth have to do with anything?”

 “It has _everything_ to do with it, because you’ve got it stuck in your head that all synths are trustworthy and all humans aren’t. And I get why you think that. I really do. But it’s not that black and white, Leo.”

 “Look at me,” Mattie said, opening her arms wide. “I’m a human, but you trust me, don’t you?”

 “Well, yes, but—”

 “So then, not all humans are bad, right?”

 “Right,” Leo hesitantly agreed.

 “And if not all humans are bad, then by the same reasoning, not all synths are going to be good.”

 Worry lines blossomed across Leo’s forehead as he pursed his lips in thought.

 Mattie leaned in and whispered as if afraid that the synth in question might be able to overhear them. “She's dangerous. I don’t think she’d have any qualms about hurting people it if meant attaining her objective…including you.”

 “I don’t believe that. Besides, I’m not human.”

 “Strictly speaking, you are. A human with a synthetic brain maybe, but still _human_. And therefore, expendable.”

Leo was already shaking his head. “Mattie…”

 Mattie grasped both of his hands in hers to silence him. “Just promise me you’ll be careful, all right?”

 He squeezed her hands and smiled softly. “I will. And don’t worry about Hester, Mattie. I’m sure it was just some kind of misunderstanding. I’ll talk to her. It’ll be fine, you’ll see.”

 As Leo got up and walked back inside, Mattie shook her head and prayed— _for both their sakes_ —that he was right.


End file.
